The Purple Reaction is a music blog that focuses on music in our culture and explores the history, theory and artistry that make the music we love so great. This is a celebration of art, the emotional connections that we feel through music and the deep personal meaning we experience through great music.
This blog features new posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Parenthood: Week 17 – Being A Go-To-Work Dad

If it were financially feasible I would be a stay-at-home dad.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but I love Ollie more.

Before Ollie I would think about work when I was home more than I would think about home when I was at work. Now since coming back to work after Ollie was born, I think about home, far more at work than I think about work when I’m at home.

It’s been a great beginning of the school year, and while I’ve been getting a lot of good work done it’s hard being away from Ollie. I know he’s well taken care of when I’m away and I know that it’s important that I’m at work for financial reasons and my own growth as a person. However, I still yearn to be home with him.

Sometimes Diana will send me photos of Ollie when I’m at work. I love these photos but they also make me miss him even more. I just don’t fully feel at piece unless Ollie is near and as much as I try to focus while I’m at work, this is a feeling that I can’t shake.

As much as it is tough at work, the thrill of coming home and seeing Ollie, Diana and Buffy is amazing. It was always great to come home to Diana and Buffy but adding Ollie to the mix makes it even better. I usually give everyone a hug and a kiss, hurriedly change out of work clothes and have a conversation with Ollie about how his day went (actually this mostly involves me making funny sounds and having Ollie laugh at me).

It’s been an uplifting, powerful and positive thrill to come home to this every single day that I’ve been at work. That feeling hasn’t diminished at all.

You would think that having my attention be more focused on home while I’m at work would make me do a worse job as opposed to a better one.However I’ve had done some of my best teaching this fall because Ollie has given me an important perspective on my students and my life.

Having Ollie has reminded me of some of the most important lesson I’ve learned about being a teacher: I’m not that important, Most of the time a crisis isn’t actually that big a deal and the quality of life you have outside of teaching directly effects the quality of your teaching.

Being away from Ollie hasn’t really gotten that much easier, but I don’t really want it to. Missing Ollie reminds me of the greatest motivating factor in my life and the most important part of who I am.